The Sadies' Dallas Good Opens Up About Working with Andre Williams

Night & Day, the new album by Andre Williams & the Sadies, is packed with bleak lyrics that cover themes like prison and drugs -- subjects that WIlliams knows about from first-hand experience. As you might have guessed, Williams was in a dark place when he recorded the album, and the Sadies' Dallas Good recently let Exclaim! in on some of the singer's struggles.

"The truth is that he was in really rough shape," Good tells Exclaim!'s Jason Schneider. "He means the world to us, as well as Jon [Spencer] and Matt [Verta-Ray], so when we booked that first session we all felt that, if nothing else, we were willing to pay just to see our friend."

This was back in 2008, and Good explains, "It was a weird time for him. There was a film crew shooting a documentary on him and they were [plying] him [with] booze. He got really sick shortly after that and went into the hospital. He started getting healthy from then on, and aside from the odd relapse, today he's never been better since I've known him."

The documentary in question is presumably 2008's Agile Mobile Hostile: A Year with Andre Williams, and the film's official blog alludes to Williams's sessions with the Sadies. And while the recording period was undoubtedly dark, it's good to hear that Williams is now in a better place.

UPDATE: For the purposes of full disclosure, and to address any inaccuracies found in the quote posted above connected to a documentary film, here is Good's full quote concerning Williams's state in 2008, "[Andre] was completely out of sorts. This film company, or these two people -- this film crew -- they brought him to the session, but they were also giving him booze to make a movie. It was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. Having said that, it's not like he was struggling with sobriety and they were dangling a carrot in his face. Still it was kind of like... it was a weird time for Andre. He got really sick shortly after that, as one does, and we were able to stick by him at the worst of times."